Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Scones

I know it is Sunday, but I am already looking forward to Thursday. That market basket that my husband got me for Mother’s Day is quite something. It is like Christmas morning every Thursday night – as we unpack the beautiful wooden box with all sorts of goodies. This week’s basket came with this wonderful box of pistachio apricot granola. I can’t wait to put some on my yogurt in the morning. It’s the little things that get me through this end-of-the-year chaos.

Since I was set for breakfast this week, I thought it was only fair if I made some treats for the girls. They do love granola – but I know they love scones even more. I have gone through many ways of saving recipes over the years. I started by keeping every single food magazine and marking the pages where I liked a recipe. That worked for a little while, but after I had over 20 magazines, I couldn’t remember what was in each issue. Then I started cutting out the indexes, and had a binder of them – with the highlighted recipes that I liked. Again, not very practical as I had to look through hundreds of pages to find what I was looking for. The next plan was to cut out the recipe and put it in a photo album, where I had dividers of the different types of recipes. After I filled up two binders, I was done with that method. At that point I decided I needed to use technology, and that’s when I started my blog. I tell you, I love being able to Bing a recipe from my blog and get to it instantly. Technology can be quite awesome.

Instead of going to my usual stack for a scone recipe (knowing that I didn’t have any lingering around that I wanted to make), I went to one of the binders I created – and flipped to the “Breakfast” tab. I found this recipe that I probably cut out ages ago from either Gourmet or Bon Appetit and decided to see if it had stood the test of time. Boy did it ever – these scones were crunchy on the outside, soft and pillowy on the inside, with a touch of oat flavor, but nicely sweetened. I could have scarfed a couple of them down, except that I reminded myself they were for the girls – I already had my treat waiting. So, we will all be eating well this week, and we need to – if we are going to get through these last 5 weeks. Ugh!

Preparation

Preheat oven to 425ºF.

Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, and salt into a food processor, then add oats and pulse 15 times. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal with small (pea-size) lumps, then transfer to a bowl.

Stir together zest and buttermilk. Toss chocolate chips with oat mixture, then add buttermilk, stirring with a fork just until a dough forms. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead 6 times.

Pat dough into a 1-inch-thick round, dusting surface with more flour if necessary. Cut out as many scones as possible with cutter, dipping it in flour before each cut, and transfer scones to a lightly buttered large baking sheet. Gather scraps into a ball, then pat into a round and cut out more scones in same manner.

Brush tops of scones with buttermilk and sprinkle lightly with sugar. Bake in middle of oven until golden brown, 15 to 18 minutes, and transfer to a rack.

I keep meaning to make scones, but always seem to forget about them. I’m sure once I do make them it will be hard to forget them! One of these days…Good luck with the end of the school year chaos. We’re in full swing here!